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United Church of Paducah
4600 Buckner Lane
Paducah, KY 42001
(270) 442-3722
Worship Times
Sunday Service: 10:00a
Refreshments &
Fellowship: 11:15a
Christian Education
For All Ages:
11:20a - Noon
Nursery Services Provided Handicap Accessible
All Are Welcome!
A Congregation Of The
"Never place a period where God has placed a comma." - Gracie
Allen
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From September 23, 2007
Prayer Partners
I Timothy 2: 1-7
"First of all, then, I urge that
supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be
made for everyone, for kings and all who are in high
positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in
all godliness and dignity." (I Tim 2: 1-2)
Prayer is such a personal thing; indeed, it can be the most
intimate part of our lives.
Yet as highly personal as our prayer practices are, today's
lesson reminds us that our prayers must never be strictly
personal; they are to reach beyond the particular to embrace
the whole human family. Everyone, says the author of I
Timothy today. Pray for everyone.
Everyone? Everyone. And, especially kings and people like
them, people in high positions: presidents and prime
ministers, generals and senators, political advisors and
diplomats.
Centuries before the early church, generations before
today's counsel, the Jewish people knew to do this. Take
Psalm 72, for example. It opens with this prayer: Give the
king your justice, O God, and your righteousness to a king's
son.May he defend the cause of the poor of the people, give
deliverance to the needy, and crush the oppressor. (Ps 72:
1, 4).
Whether they seem holy or hellish or simply ill-suited to
serve, we are to pray for those in positions of leadership
and influence over society. Why? Our reading says it all: so
that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness
and dignity.
God is personal but never private, Jim Wallis reminds us in
his best-selling book, God's Politics. Indeed, even a casual
reading of the Bible makes it clear that ours is a very
public God, a God who often speaks through prophets about
very secular-sounding realities. On God's mind are
enormously important things like debt, wages, prisons,
immigrants, economic divisions, war, peace, and social
justice.
And when God speaks of such things, God addresses not only
the afflicted, the ones living under oppressive realities,
but also addresses those who occupy positions of influence,
the select few whose actions affect the many. Through the
prophets God speaks to rulers, kings, judges, employers,
landlords, owners of property and wealth, even religious
leaders. (God's Politics, p. 31-32).
And yet, in spite of our prophets' passionate efforts, the
powerful often have a difficult time discerning God's voice.
And when they do, they may want to obey but find themselves
lacking the courage or creativity necessary to do God's
will.
Which is why our prayers are so critical. They support God's
efforts to restore God's shalom, a world, as today's reading
so beautifully describes it, in which we may lead a quiet
and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity.
There are many ways to pray. We can enter into silence,
speak aloud, or even sing our prayers. A prayer can be
drawn, danced, and even dramatized. There are as many ways
to pray as there are people.
At the 26th General Synod this summer in Hartford,
Connecticut, the five key leaders of the United Church of
Christ (called the Collegium of Officers) put forth a bold
call to the wider church. A call to embodied, action-taking
prayer that is, I believe, faithful both to today's
scripture and God's overarching vision of shalom.
In their Pastoral Letter on the Iraq War, our Collegium of
Officers challenges us to prayer, and prayerful response, to
bring an end to a war whose cost to the human family cannot
be calculated. Each Conference Minister has endorsed this
letter, including our own Steve Gray, as well as all the
Presidents of the Seminaries of the United Church of Christ.
By World Communion Sunday, October 6, members of the
Collegium will travel to Washington with the signatures of
friends and members of the United Church of Christ who join
them in calling our nation to a new path toward a just and
secure world. Their hope is to carry 100,000 signatures to
the leadership of Congress and members of the
Administration. Yours may very well be among them.
Rather than simply report to you about this letter and this
effort, I want to share the Collegium's words with you,
which comes with an invitation to pray about your response.
Before I do, however, you should know that our Board of
Mission and Evangelism has copies of the letter set out at
the round table in the Fellowship Hall for you to read and
reflect upon. Also at the round table, if you are moved to
do so, you can also add your name to the growing list of
those who believe God is calling our leaders and our nation
to work to restore shalom by means other than armed
conflict.
So allow me now to share with you the Collegium's Pastoral
Letter. It begins with the words of the prophet Isaiah.
"God expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness,
but heard a cry."
(Isaiah 5:7)
The war in Iraq is now in its fifth year.
Justified as a means to end oppression, this war has imposed
the new oppression of terror on the people of Iraq.
Justified as the only way to protect the world from weapons
of mass destruction, this war has led to the massive
destruction of communal life in Iraq. Justified as a means
to end the rule of terror, this war has bred more terror.
Every day we look for justice, but all we see is bloodshed.
Every day we yearn for righteousness, but all we hear is a
cry. Thousands of precious American lives have been lost;
thousands more have been altered forever by profound
injuries. We grieve each loss and embrace bereaved families
with our prayers and compassion. Tens of thousands more
innocent Iraqi lives are daily being offered on the altar of
preemptive war and sectarian violence. They, too, are
precious, and we weep for them. In our name human rights
have been violated, abuse and torture sanctioned, civil
liberties dismantled, Iraqi infrastructure and lives
destroyed.
Billions of dollars have been diverted from education,
health care, and the needs of the poor in this land and
around the world. Efforts to restrain the real sources of
global terrorism have been ignored or subverted. Trust and
respect for the United States throughout the world has been
traded for self-serving political gain. Every day we look
for justice, but all we see is bloodshed. Every day we yearn
for righteousness, but all we hear is a cry.
We confess that too often the church has been little more
than a silent witness to evil deeds. We have prayed without
protest. We have recoiled from the horror this war has
unleashed without resisting the arrogance and folly at its
heart. We have been more afraid of conflict in our churches
than outraged over the deceptions that have killed
thousands. We have confused patriotism with self-interest.
As citizens of this land we have been made complicit in the
bloodshed and the cries. Lord, have mercy upon us.
In the midst of our lament we give thanks - for pastors and
laity who have raised courageous voices against the violence
and the deceit, for military personnel who have served with
honor and integrity, for chaplains who have cared for
soldiers and their families with compassion and courage, for
veterans whose experience has led them to say, "no more,"
for humanitarian groups, including the Middle East Council
of Churches, who have cared for the victims of violence and
the growing tide of refugees, for the fragile Christian
community in Iraq that continues to bear witness to the
Gospel under intense pressure and fear, for public officials
who have challenged this war risking reputation and career.
The Gospel witness has not been completely silenced, and for
this we are grateful.
Today we call for an end to this war, an end to our reliance
on violence as the first, rather than the last resort, an
end to the arrogant unilateralism of preemptive war. Today
we call for the humility and courage to acknowledge failure
and error, to accept the futility of our current path, and
we cry out for the creativity to seek new paths of
peacemaking in the Middle East, through regional engagement
and true multinational policing.
Today we call for acknowledgement of our responsibility for
the destruction caused by sanctions and war, thereby, we
pray, beginning to rebuild trust in the Middle East and
around the world. Today we call for repentance in our nation
and for the recognition in our churches that security is
found in submitting to Christ, not by dominating others.
To this end may we join protest to prayer, support
ministries of compassion for victims here and in the Middle
East, cast off the fear that has made us accept the way of
violence and return again to the way of Jesus. Thus may
bloodshed end and cries be transformed to the harmonies of
justice and the melodies of peace. For this we yearn, for
this we pray, and toward this end we rededicate ourselves as
children of a loving God who gives "light to those who sit
in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into
the way of peace."
* * * * * * * * *
Even as our scripture today calls us to prayers of
intercession, prayers that stretch to embrace the human
family, the powerful and the powerless and everyone in
between, I remind myself that without confession, our
prayers are incomplete.
And so I confess to God, and to you, that I don't often
enough pray for those in leadership, for our modern-day
kings and queens and high-ranking leaders. Nor do my prayers
often enough lift up my far-flung brothers and sisters,
especially those touched by the war.
Instead, my prayers focus largely on my day-to-day needs and
concerns--and yours--a world far smaller, more approachable
and manageable than the one my faith calls me to keep before
God.
Because I cannot imagine how God could possibly use my
prayers and prayerful responses to restore shalom, to bring
wholeness, healing, and peace, I deprive God of my full,
faithful participation. I am not often enough God's full
partner in prayer.
And yet, as overwhelming and hopeless as the war in Iraq
appears to me, as convinced as I sometimes am that our best
leaders may themselves not know how to bring a peaceful
resolution to this war, because of the cross, I know that
nothing is ever too much for God.
God calls us to put our faith in and our prayers behind the
reality that ours not a Good Friday God, a God of
destruction and despair and dead-ends. Indeed, ours is a God
who transforms even the darkest, densest of evils into
communities and countries of dignity, peace, and resurrected
life.
Won't you partner with this God? I pray you will. Amen.
© Rev. Karen Winkel
United Church of Paducah (UCC) Visit
www.ucc.org to endorse the Pastoral Letter on the Iraq War
online. Follow the links. |
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Calendar pages to
keep up to date on current church news and events.
Please join us for a special viewing of
Promises
on September 7th
at 12 noon.
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